288 Scottish Life in the 17TH Century. 



The younger male members of the family had adopted the 

 fashion of powdered hair. When they went abroad these 

 gentlemen carried a gold-headed cane in their hand, reaching ta 

 about a foot above their heads, and grasped by the middle. 

 Swords were regarded as an indispensible article of fashionable 

 costume. Ladies, when visiting or receiving company, wore silk 

 gowns with gold or gilded buttons or fringes. These gowns were 

 very long in the waist, with long flowing trains. High-heeled 

 shoes and silver buckles were the fashion. The hair was sa 

 dressed as to stand almost erect, and was covered with a fine 

 lawn head-dress, with lappets of Flanders lace, and penners 

 which hung down from the back of the head. The visitors were 

 surprised at the splendour and costliness of the ladies' dresses, 

 but were privately informed by the hostess that two suits would 

 last for life, and that they were not renewed except at marriage 

 or some other great event. 



I have already drawn on a contemporary poet of the west 

 country for a description of a rural feast of the period. Let me 

 give you a stanza or two from the verse of a more noted man, Sir 

 Richard Maitland of Lethington or Thirlstane, who belongs 

 rather to the close of the sixteenth century, in order to illustrate 

 the fact that the ungallant pastime of satirising the ladies' 

 apparel is no modern growth, and that fine dressing was no 

 monopoly of the nobility or county families. Sir Richard wrote 

 a long " Satire of the Town Ladies," of which this is a sample : — 



" Sum wives of the burrows-toun 

 Sa wonder vane are and wantoun. 



In warld they watt not what to wear. 

 On claithes they wair nionie a croon, 



And all for new fangleness of geir. 



" Their goons are costlie and trimlie trails ; 

 Barrit witli velvons, slieve, neck, and tails, 



And their foreskirt of silks seir [several]. 

 Of finest camroche their faik-sails [over-mantle]. 



And all for new fangleness of geir. 



" And of fine silk their furrit clokes, 

 With hingand sleeves like geill-pokes ; 



Na preaching will gar them forbeir 

 To wear such things that sin provokes, 



And all for new fangleness of geir." 



Others of Maitland's poems shew us how wonderfully 

 similar, under varying circumstances, has been the condition of 

 human life from age to age. In these verses, for example, you 

 would think you had a present-day wail about landlord oppres- 

 sion and the decay of agriculture: — 



" Some with deir farme are herriet haill. 

 That wont to pay but penny maill ; 

 Some by their lordis are oppresst. 



